Can You Really Still Order Discontinued Menu Items At Sonic?

Sonic is something unique in the world of fast food, at least when compared to the mainstream fast food purveyors. Sonic is less of a conventional drive-thru as it is a carhop, or one of those restaurants where waiters deliver food to you while you wait inside your car. While Sonic certainly didn't invent the carhop business model (that honor goes to Kirby's Pig Stand in Dallas, Texas, in 1921 according to Smithsonian Magazine), Sonic's carhops help to separate it from the rest of the fast food industry.

But like any restaurant, Sonic has an ever-changing menu. This means that, every so often, certain foods and drinks will be discontinued. Take, for example, certain slushy flavors like pineapple, watermelon, and green apple, which were discontinued in 2019 (via Twitter). It's an unfortunate but necessary process done to keep menus fresh, simple, and most importantly, up-to-date with what the consumer and the market demands.

Unlike most restaurants, however, certain items on Sonic's menu can still be ordered, even if they're discontinued. But how exactly can you order these discontinued items? The answer isn't exactly "official," per se — you just need to know how to ask for it the right way.

While Sonic doesn't exactly offer discontinued items to customers, it doesn't mean that the restaurants still don't have the ingredients needed to make them. All it takes is a customer who knows exactly what they're looking for and then placing the order to get your hands on whatever discontinued item you want.

As Thrillist explains, Sonic's focus on made-to-order customization allows the customer to request any item they want, so long as they have the ingredients to make them. Some examples Thrillist gives are the Extreme Tots, which are tater tots loaded with chili, cheese, jalapenos, and ranch, or the Ring Leader Loaded Burger, which is a cheeseburger with onion rings, grilled onions, and bacon. Just by knowing the ingredients, one can make their own "unofficial" item to enjoy. 

According to Restaurant Clicks, many of these discontinued items make up part of Sonic's "secret menu," or a menu that includes a wide variety of food and drink combinations. These can range from outrageous burgers to unique slushies. 

Like other fast-food restaurants that have secret menus, such as Burger King and Five Guys, so too does Sonic. But what exactly makes up this secret menu and, if anything, is there anything good on it?

According to Restaurant Clicks, some of the items you can find on Sonic's secret menu include Frito Pi, a combination of chili and nacho cheese served with Fritos corn chips, Purple Sprite, a mixture of Sprite, Powerade, lemonade, and cranberry juice, and the Hickory Burger, which is a burger patty dipped in hickory sauce and topped with an onion ring. Other menu items, as Fast Food Menu Prices tells us, are the Slap Yo Mama soda, which is Powerade, lemon, and raspberry, Pickle-Os, which is deep-fried pickles, and the Sonic Sunrise, which is a mix of cherry limeade and orange juice.

Some, however, argue that these aren't "real" secret menu items and these are just examples of customers ordering whatever they want. As one Reddit user states, "These are not actually a secret menu... the drive-ins are supposed to customize whatever order you want (as long as they have the ingredients)," explains the user. "Just don't use the weird names. Especially for the drinks or 'extreme tots.' The names can mean different things depending on where in the country you are."